It may have been the second straight 39th annual Coronado High School Homecoming Parade, and next year's event may require considerably more money and
planning, but none of that mattered to the hundreds of participants and spectators in Old Colorado City the morning of Sept. 26.

Coronado Homecoming Parade scenes Sept. 26... Young members of the crowd take candy from a high school "stranger" at 25th Street
and Colorado Avenue.

Westside Pioneer photo

Student Body President Tyler Romero said a total of 40 entrants (including each of the Corvette convertibles carrying Homecoming king and queen candidates) made
their way down Colorado Avenue before the pep rally in Bancroft Park.

Coronado Homecoming Parade scenes Sept. 26... One word says it all on the Cougar wrestling float.

Westside Pioneer photo

“Everything went very smoothly,” he said, “even better than we planned.”
It worked out better than the Homecoming football game later in the day, at which Coronado unfortunately lost for the seventh year in a row.
The Homecoming King and Queen, announced at the game, were Dusty Solis and Megan Trujillo.
Parade participants on the warm and sunny morning consisted of several clubs and sports at the high school, as well as all the Coronado feeder schools. Music was
supplied by the CHS, West and Holmes bands, and plenty of shouting was added by the high schoolers on their floats.
The number of entrants was actually one higher than last year's, when then-Coronado Student Body President Nick Kadlec claimed the honorary title of biggest
homecoming parade in the state, but Romero confessed that he had not paid attention to that nicety this year.
But he will set the record - probably never to be broken - for most parades in a year planned by a Coronado student body president (two, or at least one and a half).
Because of a recently implemented city special-events ordinance, which requires long-range planning of any events big enough to close down city streets, Romero said
he expects to start working on the 2010 event before he graduates in the spring. Previously, Coronado's student presidents, who take office at the start of the school
year, had time to pull the event together in the roughly six weeks after the first day of school in mid-August. Now the presidents “aren't even going to be able to plan
their own parades,” Romero lamented.
In addition, the parade cost has gone up roughly five-fold, to about $5,000, largely due to the ordinance's liability focus - now the school must contract for some work
that volunteers once did.
But Romero feels positive, all in all. With the next parade having the boost of being the 40th annual - the 39th had to be “repeated” this year because of a miscount in
the past - he believes fundraising should go well. He's also getting experience at trimming costs. Looking at the 2010 parade budget, he noted a $400 expense that
had let some student leaders zip up and down the parade route in rented golf carts (as they have in previous parades). “The carts have been fun, but they may have to
be cut,” he said.